In the Lexington school the course in physical training was very complete. The muscle training was varied and abundant, the pupils retired at half-past eight o'clock, wore no corsets or close dress, kept their extremities warm with flannels and strong shoes, ate plain food, and enjoyed many amusing games and much hearty laughter.
We measured them about the chest, under the arms, on entering the school, and again on leaving, and found that a common increase in eight months was three inches. There was a still more remarkable enlargement of the arms and shoulders, while the change in their manner of walking never failed to impress us all. Female weaknesses, which, in some form, nearly all of them brought to the school, were quickly relieved; and headaches, after the first month of the school year, were almost unknown among us.
I do not wish to protract this discussion of the possibilities in physical development in our girls' schools; but I will say, after such opportunities for observation as no other man on either continent has enjoyed, that it is my deliberate conviction that ninety-nine in every hundred girls, may be so developed, physically, in two years of school life, that they can walk ten miles without fatigue, be free from aches and weaknesses, and be nobly fitted for the grave responsibilities of citizenship and motherhood.
4_th._—I would add that the true school will magnify nature—will make conspicuous in its programme the natural sciences, will push very far the rudimentary English training, will give the most emphatic and determined attention to composition and conversation, and will watch over the manners of the pupil with a truly parental interest.
I have seen coarse, unmannerly boors engaged in teaching girls Latin and Trigonometry. It seems to be thought if they understand the technics of the books, that is enough. Of course they must comprehend what they attempt to teach; but the rare and precious graces in a teacher, are fine manners and conversational powers. More is learned in an hour's conversation with refined, cultured people upon almost any topic, than can be learned in a day from books, even with the assistance of an unrefined, mechanical teacher.
I shall be happy to correspond with parents about the schools of New
England, which are earnest in regard to physical education.
HEROIC WOMEN.
Without pursuing any special order, I will mention Hypasia, the much calumniated Aspasia, and the Athenian courtezan Leaena, who, when put to the torture to make her betray her friends and accomplices in a political conspiracy, bit out her tongue, and spat it in the face of her tormentor.
In more modern times, as education is placed within the reach of all, these "burning and shining lights" become less conspicuous, set, as they are, amid a galaxy of scarcely less brilliant luminaries. Instances might be cited by the dozen of women who have taken degrees in theology, who have lectured in public, and been celebrated as savans and philosophers.
As for those who have received the dignity of canonization, the
Roman calendar alone is capable of keeping any account of them.